Thursday, January 6, 2011

Thursday bike 2:40

A few hours after my morning run (previous post). 2:40 on the MTB with 3900ft of climbing and an average HR of 145. I rode 2 X 3 mile climbs at a tempo effort with HR 150-160, both were minutes faster than the same ride two weeks ago (one from 8000-9100ft and one from 6800ft to 8200ft altitude) and then finished the ride with 3 X 2:00 done at max effort in my biggest gear uphill (ouch. And when I say max I mean max. I thought my knee caps were going to pop off). The goal today was to accumulate time at MAF mostly but also to work a bit nearer my AeT, which for me at this point is going to be a little more useful on the bike than straight up MAF work (more muscle recruitment/ strength work).
The plan for my training has been to hold back my run and bike a ton first, which I've done over the past 8 weeks. Then move my biking in to the next period while starting my run from scratch. This 'off set' means that I will never be in the same period on the bike and run. So when I'm killing it on the bike and tired from biking hard all I have to do on the run is easy base work. Then when I move in to high intensity running, my cycling will move on to more specific intensity, which won't be that hard. The volumes correlate well too- when I'm biking a ton I'll be running less and when I'm running a ton I'll be biking less.
And something that I've gone back to since I've been biking has been dried plums. Brilliant food for training with 100g of carbohydrate per 1 cup which makes it a pretty solid form of CHO. And gram for gram cheaper than most products along with benefits for balancing blood pH. Raisins are too small and I find that when I'm breathing hard I sometimes inhale one, then cough it up in to my nasal cavity, then snort hard and it goes back down my wind pipe. It's a really vicious cycle. Same with rice which I used to ride a lot with. Another good one is rice syrup or honey which blows away over the counter energy gels in terms of price per gram of CHO. I think Cliff Shot's main ingredient is rice syrup.

6 comments:

Have you tried dates? I buy a big bag of them at Sams for about $7 and they are great on the bike or for long runs.

Also, I just joined a cycling team this year, which is new since I have always been a runner. According to your post, it sounds like it is possible to throw in some easy runs during the main cycling season. I definitely do not want to stop all running. Great blog.

T- Dates are awesome too. You should keep running to keep a balance in leg strength. You'll find that the two compliment each other well. You'll lose very little, if any, run fitness while cycling. Plus the biking is going to keep you from feeling beat up.

Will that really work? The offsetting I mean. Is it possible for your body to be at two different periods at nearly the same time? I understand what you mean about getting in easier runs with harder biking, but is there a possiblity that it would end up in burnout at some point? I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to this so I'm not being critical, I just find it fascinating.Rice Syrup sounds awesome though. I've tried to experiment with molasses lately, but I just can't past the heavy taste. It's great in oatmeal, but when training it's just too much. Awesome nutritional ideas though! I'll definitely try these out before stocking up on my next batch of supps! Cheers,Dave

That's the tricky part. Recovery is a huge element in preventing burnout and also not truly killing myself on the bike or run. 'Back in the day' I could absorb 350-400 mile bike weeks during my hard running phases and I did well on that (because I was bike fit). One trick is to not mix high volumes. If I run big miles then I bike very little. And during the hard interval phase of my biking I will only be doing a one hour session plus two long rides (one easy and one tempo like today) and then that's it, not really much at all... but enough because running will be filled in on the other days. I'll also slowly build intensity which I have been doing, never shocking my system. The increase should be so slight that I always adapt and am never wasted. It's the 4 weeks between the Silver Rush 50's and the Leadville 100's that will be matched and then it will be nothing but MAF/ AeT work for both and focusing only on 2 long bikes and 2 long runs per week with 3 days off completely. So not that much volume either. I'm excited to see how it pans out. Molasses? Ugh! Honey and rice syrup mixed 1/2 and 1/2 with water. You can even mix it all in to a water bottle and it just barely sweetens the water.